SAHIB SINGH, PROFESSOR (1892-1977), grammarian and theologian, was born on 16 February 1892 in a Hindu family of the village of Phattevali in Sialkot district of undivided Punjab. He was originally named Natthu Ram by his father, Hiranand, who kept a small shop in the village. Soon the family shifted to Tharpal, another village in the same district. As a youth, Natthu Ram was apprenticed to the village Maulawi, Hayat Shah, son of the famous Punjabi poet, Hasham, upon whom his royal patron, Ranjit Singh, the Maharaja of the Punjab, had settled a permanent Jagir Winning a scholarship at his middle standard examination, Natthu Ram joined the high school at Pasrur where he received in 1906 the rites of the Khalsa and his new name Sahib Singh.
SANGAT SINGH, SANT (1882-1950), a Sikh saint revered for his piety as well as for his learning, was born in 1882, at Kamalia, a small town in Lyallpur district, now in Pakistan. His father, Bhai Sital Das, a Sahajdhari Sikh, was a descendant of Bhai Shamu Sachiar, one of the recipients of a bakhshish, i.e. a missionary seat, from Guru Har Rai. Young Sangat Das, as he was originally named, was brought up in an atmosphere of religious devotion and discipline. He was imparted such education as was available at home in those days reading and writing in Gurmukhi and some knowledge of Sikh sacred texts.